Cycle wonkiness

[pyralisdawn.livejournal.com]

So, over the summer I've started exercising a lot more than I had in the previous year. I know that this can affect a cycle, but mine's seemed a bit strange. I've gone in and out of exercise routines before, and regardless of this my cycle has been pretty clockwork from the day I first got it (28-30 days). But only just this summer, it suddenly decided to shorten by about five days. My actual period hasn't gotten any lighter or shorter, it's only started coming earlier than it usually does.

Normally, I'd write this off as just as the effect of a lifestyle change, but after charting my cycle again this past month with FAM to figure out what's up, it seems I'm still ovulating at around the same time I used to (day 20), but my luteal phase has just gotten freakishly short (only 3 days long this month!). This seems really strange to me.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing? I feel like I might just be missing something.

Comments

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

I would be very surprised if you were having a three day luteal phase -- that would be, to say the least, incredibly abnormal (especially since anything under 10-12 days is considered a medical issue), and at any rate the luteal phase rarely changes lengths between cycles. It's the follicular phase that's usually disrupted by lifestyle changes, etc.

What I actually wonder is if these changes in exercise is leading to you having anovulatory cycles, possibly with some pre-ovulation symptoms, that still end in bleeding. (This can also be due to other things, like thyroid issues, etc.) It's not uncommon for anovulatory cycles to be shorter than normal menstrual cycles.

[pyralisdawn.livejournal.com]

That's why I thought this to seem so weird -- my luteal phase has always been 10 days, and I know it's not supposed to change.

I don't feel like I've been exercising so much that it would make me stop ovulating (about 30 mins a day), but that would definitely explain the weirdness. The only thing is that my temps give a decent ov. indication for this month, that otherwise follows the pattern of previous cycles where I know that I actually did ovulate.

I guess I should probably chart another month more closely and see if it looks any different.

Thanks :)

Also, what sort of thyroid issues can affect bleeding? I know that my mom has a thyroid thing that I should probably educate myself more about.

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure on the details, unfortunately, though I bet archangelbeth will know more!

[archangelbeth]

*laugh* Basically, thyroid issues can do just about any old thing to periods. In my case, they were really irregular, and usually pretty long. Take 1994, for instance:
1993: December 6-12
1994: Jan 19-24 (38 days from the end of Dec's to this one)
Feb 20-26 (27 days between)
May 2-7ish (66 days between)
Jun 10-15 (33 days between)
Aug 3-7 (49 days between)
Sep 2-8 (~26 days between)
Oct 24-30 (46 days between)
Dec 10-17 (~41 days between, and I have a note of "spotty.")

I was not charting ovulation/luteal phases, though. It was more of a "...you know, I am sexually active, and I totally forget when my last period was, and this makes me nervous..." kind of thing. So I started recording it and discovered that my periods were all over the map, and generally didn't start worrying till it'd been about 50 days between. Which... even when it was 50+ days, were only scares and no pregnancies.

My longest interval between the end of one period and the beginning of another was 68 days. My shortest was 13 -- which came right after the 68, and right on the tail end of having sinusitus that drove my temp up to around 102F with ibuprofen, which eventually required an ER visit on Xmas day, and antibiotics. Gods, I was miserable, what with a nasty brownish period, travel, my nose running a mile a minute, fever... About the only thing I didn't get was a YI. (Far as I know, I've never managed one of those. I can only attribute it to a lucky combination of genetics and possibly eating a lot of yogurt as a kid. And even now, I go through yogurt binges...)

Now, to babble on a bit more about thyroid... My mom was diagnosed basically by accident; she was doing one of those "we pay you money to participate in a drug test" thing, that required a blood test, and the lab people nearly crawled through the phone because her TSH was 100+. She nagged me to get tested, and I was going "of course I'm tired, I have an active, attention-demanding kid, duh!" Except I was also gaining weight despite breastfeeding... Anyway, I finally asked to get tested. And had TSH 10.02 (it's written down in my little red "period" book). That is, to say the least, high. If not so high as my mom's, which was in the "...how are you walking around and not in a hypothyroid coma?" category.

Now that I'm on the meds, I can confidently say that I have been at least borderline hypo since I was a teenager. The underlying fatigue that I thought was just laziness? Not quite. I'm still lazy, sure, but there's a distinct difference in how it feels. O:>

So, if one's parent has a thyroid issue, I would definitely suggest that one should keep an eye on one's thyroid -- if it's an immune system issue or other genetic issue (my and my mom's thyroids basically just up and hit the bahamas without us; her father probably died of undiagnosed hypothyroid issues, including dementia), you are definitely at risk. Cancers... Dunno about thyroid cancers. Have not studied up on those.

Also, many women have temporary thyroid issues after childbirth. For some of those women, the thyroid function never returns. That's basically what happened to me, I think -- my borderline hypo got bad.

For people who know even more than I do, http://community.livejournal.com/thyroid is a place to ask more questions.

...That help? O:>

[geminigirl]

Are your charts online somewhere? I wonder if your cycles have been anovulatory, or if there's a calculator error or something. Three days is freakishly short, and less than about 10 days is often called a "luteal phase defect."

[pyralisdawn.livejournal.com]

I realize that's it's beyond odd to have a luteal phase that short, which is why I thought I was probably missing something. Anovulatory cycles seems like a plausible explanation.

I don't have an electronic copy of my chart for this past month, but I'll probably chart online for this coming month and see if there's any change or better indication of what's going on.